Where was my invite to the Showcase?
Surely it was an oversight.
Whatever the error, I never received my invitation to play in the Showcase celebrity golf tournament over the weekend at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course.
Thus, the crowds were denied the opportunity to see my unorthodox, left-handed, “Spinning Top” golf swing — which no doubt would have been worth the price of admission all by itself.
As for somehow not being asked to play…
Perhaps tournament organizers got a brief glimpse of my last round at The Resort, which would have been classified as humiliating if I had any pride at all.
Even worse (and a lot of you can identify with this), I arrived by myself that day, and thus was placed with a threesome consisting of two low-handicap, sweet-swinging gentlemen and a low-handicap, sweet-swinging lady.
Given those circumstances, I spent a lot of the afternoon trying to remember if it’s proper golf etiquette to say “I’m so sorry” each time there’s a minor delay after you’ve clanked a shot into rocks, foliage, lake, someone else’s cart, etc.
The only thing missing was a whiff.
TRUST ME, it’s a bit frightening to play in a group of excellent golfers who are total strangers when your game is…
Hmmm…
How can I describe my golf game?
A friend once joked that I’m a John Denver golfer (“Some days are diamonds, some days are stones…”), but it’s maybe more accurate to say that I’m wildly erratic in the MIDST of rounds.
I can be mistaken for a short-hitting but decent player by someone watching for just three or four holes — as long as they happen to be the right holes.
And no, I can’t predict which they’ll be.
Anyone who sticks around very long eventually will see my famous pop fly to shortstop, or that ground ball back to the mound.
Several years ago, I played in a celebrity event at Steamboat Springs in northern Colorado — a terrific charity tournament hosted by broadcaster Verne Lundquist and the late football Hall of Famer, Doak Walker.
(I’ve been invited over the years as a friend, certainly not as a celebrity or a useful golfer.)
In any case, I happened to be in a foursome that included another Hall of Famer, longtime NFL placekicker Jan Stenerud.
Jan is a super player (like a lot of ex-placekickers), and he hit a fabulous second shot to about 10 feet from the hole on No. 9 — which happens to sit in a natural bowl, so all the spectators tend to gather there.
Meanwhile…
I’d hit just about the best drive of my life on the hole, accidentally cutting the corner over a lake, after which I plopped a sand wedge dead into the cup for an eagle — which knocked me to my knees in disbelief.
ANYWAY, the folks gathered around the hole gave us a pretty neat ovation, since I’d holed out and everyone in the group had hit great shots.
In fact, a sizable crowd followed us to the 10th tee to watch the group tee off on a par-5.
Predictably, everyone skulled it — either yanking shots into trees on the left or, worse, toward a rocky hillside on the right. I think I dribbled a bouncer into some bushes.
Immediately, our “gallery” drifted back toward No. 9.
I was riding with Stenerud, who said in his Norwegian accent: “Well, we cleared that gang out pretty fast.”
The Steamboat experience, even when I was playing dreadfully, was still great fun because I KNEW everyone.
They understood that all my shots, good or bad, were completely accidental.
But hey…
If you’re slapping the ball around horribly in the company of people you don’t know, sometimes No. 18 can’t come fast enough.
You begin to dream of the parking lot.
IT WOULD have been exactly that way on my round from hell with those nifty players at The Resort, except…
I no-brained a shot to about 15 feet on the island hole, made the birdie putt and earned a certificate to prove it.
It was almost embarrassing, even to our teenage caddy (who’d read the putt perfectly, by the way).
On the boat ride back from that famous No. 14 green, I said to the group: “I guess anyone can get lucky in this game.”
No one smiled or replied.
I mean…
Can any clown frustrate good golfers more than a hacker with a surgically repaired back who bunts it back and forth all day, then birdies No. 14?
I almost wish I’d set fire to the certificate during the boat ride, kind of like doing penance.
Whoever you are, my partners that day, I apologize one last time.
But that’s golf, right?
As Arnold Palmer once said: “It’s not meant to be a fair game.”
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball once monthly during the offseason.
Email: scameron@cdapress.com